ABSTRACT
Imagine being the Hamburg offi cial quoted in the introduction to Chapter 5. It becomes obvious that the occurrence of change events is disruptive to policy processes. Events such as sediment accumulation disrupted the original plans in Hamburg and prevented the straightforward implementation of the next deepening operation. This was a clear setback from the perspective of the port authorities. The important question is whether or not this occurrence could have been avoided. The argument presented in Chapter 5 is that the occurrence of change events is inevitable and that disruptions to the policy process will continue to occur regardless of the efforts made to control it. However, understanding the occurrence and nature of unforeseen and sometimes unfavourable events could shed some light on the sources of disruptions to the policy process.
